Saturday, January 31, 2009

For the past 5 years or so I have had a lovely Dyson vac, similar to the model in the photo. However, the past several months it has been obviously near complete break down. It has like half the power it used to and the motor sounds wrong. None of the hoses are clogged, so that isn't the problem. After that many years of sucking up tons of dog and cat hair it seems to have had enough.

It took me months to admit to it, but I needed a new vac and I just can't put out the money for a new Dyson. Yesterday I finally replaced it with a Bissell pet hair vac, which was less than 1/3 the price of the Dyson animal vac.

I am not in the least happy about replacing my Dyson with something that isn't a Dyson, but I don't want to pay $500 and really can't afford to. I haven't even taken the new one out of the trunk of my car yet. I will later today and give it a go. At the very least it will have to work better than my half power Dyson, but is it also possible that it could work as well as my Dyson did when it was new? That is my hope -- that I will be very pleasantly surprised. I have sworn for the last 5 years that Dyson is the best vac ever invented, but I would be happy to be wrong.

LOS ANGELES – The woman who gave birth to octuplets this week conceived all 14 of her children through in vitro fertilization, is not married and has been obsessed with having children since she was a teenager, her mother said.

Angela Suleman told The Associated Press she was not supportive when her daughter, Nadya Suleman, decided to have more embryos implanted last year.

"It can't go on any longer," she said in a phone interview Friday. "She's got six children and no husband. I was brought up the traditional way. I firmly believe in marriage. But she didn't want to get married."

Nadya Suleman, 33, gave birth Monday in nearby Bellflower. She was expected to remain in the hospital for at least a few more days, and her newborns for at least a month.

A spokeswoman at Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Center said the babies were doing well and seven were breathing unassisted.

While her daughter recovers, Angela Suleman is taking care of the other six children, ages 2 through 7, at the family home in Whittier, about 15 miles east of downtown Los Angeles.

She said she warned her daughter that when she gets home from the hospital, "I'm going to be gone."

Angela Suleman said her daughter always had trouble conceiving and underwent in vitro fertilization treatments because her fallopian tubes are "plugged up."

There were frozen embryos left over after her previous pregnancies and her daughter didn't want them destroyed, so she decided to have more children.

Her mother and doctors have said the woman was told she had the option to abort some of the embryos and, later, the fetuses. She refused.

Her mother said she does not believe her daughter will have any more children.

"She doesn't have any more (frozen embryos), so it's over now," she said. "It has to be."

Nadya Suleman wanted to have children since she was a teenager, "but luckily she couldn't," her mother said.

"Instead of becoming a kindergarten teacher or something, she started having them, but not the normal way," he mother said.

Her daughter's obsession with children caused Angela Suleman considerable stress, so she sought help from a psychologist, who told her to order her daughter out of the house.

"Maybe she wouldn't have had so many kids then, but she is a grown woman," Angela Suleman said. "I feel responsible and I didn't want to throw her out."

Yolanda Garcia, 49, of Whittier, said she helped care for Nadya Suleman's autistic son three years ago.

"From what I could tell back then, she was pretty happy with herself, saying she liked having kids and she wanted 12 kids in all," Garcia told the Long Beach Press-Telegram.

"She told me that all of her kids were through in vitro, and I said 'Gosh, how can you afford that and go to school at the same time?"' she added. "And she said it's because she got paid for it."

Garcia said she did not ask for details.

Nadya Suleman holds a 2006 degree in child and adolescent development from California State University, Fullerton, and as late as last spring she was studying for a master's degree in counseling, college spokeswoman Paula Selleck told the Press-Telegram.

Her fertility doctor has not been identified. Her mother told the Los Angeles Times all the children came from the same sperm donor but she declined to identify him.

Birth certificates reviewed by The Associated Press identify a David Solomon as the father for the four oldest children. Certificates for the other children were not immediately available.

The news that the octuplets' mother already had six children sparked an ethical debate. Some medical experts were disturbed to hear that she was offered fertility treatment, and troubled by the possibility that she was implanted with so many embryos.

Others worried that she would be overwhelmed trying to raise so many children and would end up relying on public support.

The eight babies — six boys and two girls — were delivered by Cesarean section weighing between 1 pound, 8 ounces and 3 pounds, 4 ounces. Forty-six physicians and staff assisted in the deliveries.

In general, fertility treatments bother me when there are so many children in need of a good home. However, I do realize that for some reason people want to have a child with the same genetics as they have. For someone who wants to have 1 or 2 children, I suppose it is somewhat acceptable, but why on earth should someone that already has 6 children be eligible for that type of procedure?

This story bothers me on many levels -- there is no mention of a husband and the woman lives with her parents. Now, I have no problem with single women having children, so I am not saying it in that sense, just pointing out that this woman is living with her PARENTS, not on her own or with a husband or SO of some sort. Why on earth would someone in that situation need more children?

I can't imagine what type of woman -- single or not would want even 6 children, let along 14. Frankly, I believe this woman must have some sort of mental illness. You know, like those people that horde pets -- only she hordes babies and children.

I personally believe that there needs to be restrictions put on who can have this type of treatment and that someone that already has SIX children should not be eligible. Is that mean of me? I don't think so.